


Blood on your hands

by write_your_way_out



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 14:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11420316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_your_way_out/pseuds/write_your_way_out
Summary: Someone had to dip their hands in blood. Post time-skip, Reiner comes to the realization that a drop of blood on his hands turned into a pool of blood at his feet.





	Blood on your hands

**Author's Note:**

> Major post-anime spoilers!!! I used a sentence starter by @ croyezmxi on tumblr.

“Their blood is on my hands.” Reiner sat with his back to the wall, head in his arms. His fingers laced through his hair, tugging, as if he could pull out the haunting thoughts. He could finally say it. There was no one around to judge his words.

Or rather, there was no one left.

“Their blood is on my hands,” It was a mantra. A chant. It screamed at him from the depths of his skull, reminding him, refusing to let him forget that because of him hundreds of people had died.

Annie. Who knew if she was alive or not. The last Reiner had heard from her was when she barely escaped the Survey Corps traps. Then there was the brawl with Eren. Then she was never heard from again. Was she still alive somehow? Unlikely. If she was alive surely she would have come to find him. Her blood was on his hands.

Marcel. Reiner had never understood what it meant to die in someone’s place until Marcel shoved him out of the jaws of death. It was an action born of guilt and greed, a coping mechanism that Marcel couldn’t handle. Whether he was willing to or not was of no consequence. He died in place of Reiner. Marcel’s blood was on his hands.

Ymir. What must it feel like to be a goddess? She said it was amazing. He wouldn’t know. He had grown up in a world that taught him how little he meant. His worth was that of a discarded son, a family shame. Even when he had reached his goal, he was nothing more than a thirteen-year curse on everyone around him. Ymir joined him for the same reasons Marcel had left. And like Marcel, he failed to direct her fate towards life. Her blood was on his hands.

Bertholdt. Was he still out there? No. His power was too great. It had been years of silence from him. By now the Survey Corps must have passed his power on. It was Reiner who was tasked with protecting him. Not only had he failed, he had failed with such a grandeur that his failures haunted his dreams. Bertholdt’s blood was on his hands.

Perhaps his greatest failure of all - He failed to become a warrior.

After all, someone had to douse their hands in blood.


End file.
